Michael Rollins: And just one other. Where are you in process of restructuring the Business wireline operations? And how close are you to an inflection where that segment can stabilize financially or potentially eventually grow at some point? Thanks.
Hans Vestberg: Thank you, Mike. No, that’s a big focus for us. We have the secular decline, and we’ve had that for quite a while. So, there’s nothing new and nothing new to that story. But our cost efficiency is, of course, happening very, very quickly, and the team is doing a great job. Not only that, we also see that we have the right pricing for our customers and also seen where we don’t have great contract, we have decided to walk away from them. So, very much tackling — blocking and tackling to see that we’ll continue to improve. And of course, our target is to get that to sort of being neutral to our P&L over time. And that is one of the important pieces for getting the 25% of the Verizon Business Group in EBITDA. But not only that, of course, we’re offsetting that by growing our wireless business and our broadband business. So, typical management of product portfolio, and I would say Kyle and the team is doing a great job with the full support from Tony and me.
Michael Rollins: Thanks.
Brady Connor: Yeah, thanks, Mike. Brad, we’re ready for the next questions.
Operator: The next question comes from Frank Louthan of Raymond James. Please go ahead, sir.
Frank Louthan: Great. Thank you. So, you made a lot of changes in the last year to kind of retail marketing to correct some of the past periods. You now got a new CMO. What can we expect her to be doing differently? Should we see this as another reset or change of direction? How should we think about that adjustment? Thanks.
Hans Vestberg: You’re right. Last year, we did a lot of changes. But looking at the result, I think many of the changes was absolutely right, all the way from our structural changes to go-to-market, the product. And also, we did quite a lot of management changes, getting the — many of the executives in new positions, including then recruiting a new CMO, Leslie Berland. We’re excited to have her on. I think where we are with our brand and with our offerings, we’re in a great place. But you know you cannot sit still here and that’s why we recruited Leslie. Leslie will work with the full team to see how we continue to refine the leadership in the brand, because we are the number one brand in the market. We’re just going to refine that, but we’re not going to sit still. So, I think Leslie has been here for two weeks. So, I see a lot of great initiatives and ideas, and we will work together with her to make this company even better.
Frank Louthan: Okay, great. Thank you.
Brady Connor: Yeah, thanks, Frank. Brad, we’re ready for the next question.
Operator: The next question comes from David Barden of Bank of America. Your line is open, sir.
David Barden: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. A couple if I could. Just the first, you went out of your way to highlight how well fixed wireless access is doing in the C-Band markets. These are kind of the main markets, probably the densest markets. Obviously, we’re going to see the C-Band deployment expand, both in terms of spectrum density and in terms of geography. 350,000 has been kind of the baseline expectation for fixed wireless access adds. In the current C-Band deployment, would you be willing to put a stake in the ground? Where could that go? Could that double by the time we get the full C-Band out there by the end of next year? That’s the first question. And I guess the second question, Tony, you gave us the kind of moving parts, the EBITDA growth, 2%, that’s about $0.75 billion after tax, interest expense at $0.175, that’s about $3 billion — $0.75 billion after tax, $1.5 billion CapEx savings.
So, the big moving part that none of us really know is the cash tax and how that might impact free cash flow, whether free cash flow could be up a little bit, down a little bit. Could you be more transparent around that moving part? Thank you so much.
Hans Vestberg: Thank you, David. When it comes to fixed wireless access, yeah, when we got the C-Band, the initial chunk of spectrum we got was in urban places. Now, since the end of third quarter, we got the suburban and rural areas. But we continue at the end of the year to strengthen our urban areas. So, now we are sort of deploying much more in the suburban and rural. That creates a new opportunity for us, both from our strength in wireless in many of those markets together with our fixed wireless access. But I said it many times before, for us, it’s very important to have a certain volume and a certain cadence, because we can optimize our resources, our capital, et cetera. So, Tony and I feel really good about being around 400,000 net adds for broadband in total, including Fios.
That has sort of been a mantra. They can be, of course, coming up and down a little bit. But it’s not like we are forcing a lot of capital and resources in the quarter and then doing less, that’s not efficient in a company like ours. We are very financially disciplined, as you know, and that’s best for our customers and for our stakeholders like shareholders. So, that’s what you’re going to expect from us.
Tony Skiadas: And Dave, just on your question on cash taxes, so we said, we’re going to be pressured by the phaseout of bonus. We did see a tax benefit in 2023 from the spectrum clearing payments. And if you think about the headwind, we’d see it at about $2 billion right now, and we’ll have to see how things play out with what the proposed legislation is.
David Barden: Perfect. Helpful, guys. Thank you so much.
Brady Connor: Yeah, thanks, Dave. Brad, we’re ready for the next question.
Operator: The next question comes from Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson. Your line is now open.
Craig Moffett: Yes, hi. I wonder if you could talk about your market growth expectations for postpaid coming into the year. I know you’re the first one to report, so we haven’t seen the results from anyone else yet. But what’s your sense of what we can expect in terms of total postpaid and maybe total phone growth for 2024 market-wide?
Hans Vestberg: Thank you, Craig. If I think about this year, I mean, first of all, well, mobility and broadband is two of the most important infrastructure in the country, and I don’t think anyone, a company, a person or organization can live without those services. We are the number one in basically everything we’re doing. I think it’s a healthy industry. It’s an important product we have, then it can come up and down. So, I cannot give you a percentage what’s going to happen. I think our offering is great. I think the product is so important, both mobility and broadband for all parts of our society. I wouldn’t like to be in any other business, and it’s sort of so important for our society that mobility and broadband is working.
